Punk isn't dead - it just needs contact lenses. "I've got them in for distance. I need to take them out to read it," says Steve Diggle, squinting at a recent article in a magazine. But he doesn't need to read it to spot the mistake: there's an interview with Pete Shelley (the other, significantly more gay founder of Buzzcocks), mistakenly illustrated with a photo of Steve. "He's the one who swings both ways!" says Steve, pointing over to Pete, winking at me. "Fucking defamation of character. What next? My picture in place of Gary Glitter or something?" It happens a lot: Pete claims he was seen at a gig peeing in a pint pot and drinking it, and that was reported in the music press as being Steve.

Up on stage, Pete, all alone, is going through the evening's set on his guitar. "Playing the guitar is like a rod for my own back. I write something, then I've got to learn how to play it. If I'd known I was going to be in the business for 30 years I would have taken guitar lessons. There's got to be an easier way."

One of the crew asks him to test the mic. "One. Two," he says, then arches his eyebrows and looks over at Steve. "Don't. One. Two ... Have. Two." Another crew member checks the guitars with what sounds like some lounge punk. "What was that?" says bass player Tony Barber. "The Shadows playing the Kinks?"

"Do you want to play this tune, then?" asks Pete. One of the crew leans against the crowd barrier at the foot of the stage with the kind of smile you might wear watching someone about to walk into a lamppost. Still, as Einstein once said: "If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it."

Less than 10 minutes later we have played three tracks, including Ever Fallen in Love. Before you can say "Wow, I'm playing with the Bu ..." the track finishes. Don't jam - just get in there, do your business and get out. Stuck to the inner wall of my head is a memo that reads (1) play loud and (2) for God's sake no jazzy nonsense. Buzzcocks tunes are surgical strikes - there are 14 on the new album, Flat-Pack Philosophy, and they all come in at under three-and-a-half minutes. When we finish there is a clap - yes, one - from the back of the venue. I ask if we can play Big Brother Wheels one more time. "Bloody hell, it better be a long article," laughs someone out in the off-stage gloom.

Back stage there are a bewildering number of staircases and doors, some of which read: "Do not enter: Spinal Tap area." After enough exercise for a week we find the dressing rooms - Hello Cleveland! "Smells of old granny around here," observes Steve.

There is no discussion about what we played, but that just wouldn't be Buzzcocks style. "Really we don't regard ourselves as musicians," says Steve. "Having a guitar is just a vehicle for a song. [REM's] Pete Buck said we're more songwriters than musicians. I don't know if he was drunk or sober when he said that. Mind you, you got a lot of compliments when you played out there, shame we didn't think of that before. But trombone was the last thing on our mind when we did that track."

"I'm not interested in being able to play. A musician is like another brand of entertainer," says Pete with disdain. "There are plenty of musicians that I enjoy watching that are entertainers. But I wouldn't want to be that, because the thing with an entertainer is that there is always that dishonesty, which is what punk tried to get rid of. It was like, you're not pretending to be something you are not. You are just what you are. Punk is an art of action. It's about deciding to do something and then going out and doing it."

Flat-Pack Philosophy sounds very close to how Buzzcocks did 30 years ago. Back then they were the same age as their crowd, now there's a span of generations - parents bringing kids and kids bringing parents.

"Everybody seems to be sounding like Buzzcocks so we thought we would for once!" says Steve, giving another wink (whenever he talks, you feel like he is telling you a cheeky secret). "The last couple of albums have been like Buzzcocks but have gone off in little avenues. We gone back to the classic hallmarks of what we had in the early days.

"Thinking back, it was such a distinctive sound that we invented. I mean, you had the Clash and the Pistols and all that, and they had their kind of sound, but Buzzcocks were almost space-aged."

Their return in the late 1980s, after an eight-year break, has endured as a cringe-free comeback. Or as Steve puts it: "Ninety-nine per cent of the time it's a mistake to get back together. We're the one per cent that works." The musical timing was also right, ready to influence a wave of pop-punk and bands like Green Day and Blink 182. They've tried not to trade on past glories ("We're nostalgic about the future") but have also refrained from flushing themselves down the celebrity toilet.

"As someone once wrote," says Pete, "'The good thing about Buzzcocks is that you never see them on Seaside Special.'" They were asked to do the Gene Simmons role in Rock School. "It's really uncool," says Steve. "Anyway, we'd teach them how to play badly - to be the worst band in the world." "Then they'd be something," says Pete.

Buzzcocks say it's all about the songs. Some think the pair's writing styles are like chalk and cheese, or Beatles and Rolling Stones. "I say his are like Mills and Boon," says Steve. "And he says mine are like Ralph McTell." "And I'm not trying to be particularly kind to Ralph McTell," says Pete, eyebrows on the go. "The songwriting has seen us through, that's what people come back for," says Steve. "Just like people read Shakespeare, I mean he's been dead for years!" "They talk about things that actually happen to people," adds Pete. "I mean it would be a sad life if you'd never fallen in love. And a far happier one if you only had to do it the once."